Mediator to meet Syria sides separately to demand peace

Mediator Lakhdar Brahimi will meet representatives of the warring sides in Syria separately for the first few days of a second round of talks that began on Monday, after the breaking of a local ceasefire set back peace efforts.

In a letter reviewed by Reuters on Monday, Brahimi increased pressure on the two sides to show willingness in a peace process sponsored by Moscow and Washington that made no progress in the first round.

He said he would talk to the two Syrian sides on their own for the next few days in hope of improving the negotiating atmosphere.

In the eight-page document, dated February 7, which was given by Brahimi to both delegations at the weekend, he asked them to make a commitment at the start to deal with the two main issues: stopping the fighting and working out discussions of a transitional governing body.

"The two issues are among the most complex and sensitive and both subjects need treatment over several sessions and long discussions," the document said. "But the future of this political process and the possibility of its success require a clear declaration from the outset that the two parties have the full and strong political will to deal with these two issues, with all that they require – courage, persistence and tenacity and openness to reach successful solutions to all the issues, no matter how complicated and thorny."

Main issues With no agreement on which issue should be discussed first, and a case to be made that both depended on the other, Brahimi said he would take them together and discuss them in parallel.

During the second week of talks he plans to expand the scope of the discussion to two other issues: how to manage the continuity of Syria's state institutions and how to handle the process of national dialogue and reconciliation that would arise from any eventual agreement in Geneva.

The first round had aimed to build confidence by focusing narrowly on trying to agree a humanitarian ceasefire in the devastated city of Homs but the truce was not finalised until afterwards and was broken soon after it began.

On its third day on Monday, aid officials said they were working to extend it, even though aid convoys had come under fire as they evacuated people and were briefly trapped in the city. – Reuters

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The National Health Laboratory Services finally admitted to a bottleneck last week, after denying there were any issues since April. According to the service, the backlog of 80 000 tests started in the first week of May